Page:The Hog.djvu/86

84, longer from head to tail and wider across the shoulders, coming earlier to maturity and easily fatten; the form of the head, too, is improved, and the ears are smaller and more shapely. These animals are chiefly derived from the old Berkshire and Cheshire breeds with an occasional and judicious cross with the Chinese. There is, too, a slight admixture here and there of the Leicestershire blood. They never attain to the size or weight of the old breeds, but their forms are more compact, their flesh finer grained, and their bones smaller. They are considered by many persons to be equal in value in all points to any breed in Europe.

The Gloucestershire is another of the large old breeds, gaunt, long legged, and unprofitable, of a dirty white color, and having wattles depending from the neck. It has been supposed to have once been the prevailing breed in England, but is now rapidly disappearing before the alterations produced by the present prevailing system of crossing from small breeds.

The pigs of this county are of the large class, similar in many respects to the Shropshire swine, and in all probability produced by a cross between those and some one or more of the smaller breeds; for they are smaller, finer-boned animals than the Shropshire pigs, have better-shaped heads and ears, are more compact in form, and have greater aptitude for fattening. They may, in fact, be fed to an enormous size; and with proper management will, at two years old, weigh two or three times as much as most hogs of other breeds at the same age. No farmer need wish to possess finer and more profitable animals than may be found among the Herefordshire pigs; the bacon made of their flesh yields in excellence to none.

Latterly this breed has been crossed with the Berkshire, and the result has been a fine, useful animal, possessing numerous good points, but not much superior to the good old stock.

Here the old breed was one of the larger class. The Wiltshire swine were long in the body, round in carcass, hollow about the shoulders, and high on the rump; short-legged, large-boned, light-colored, and the ears were large and pointed. They were, like most of this kind of pigs, large eaters and slow to fatten; but when fat attained a fair average weight, and their flesh was fine-grained and highly esteemed, especially as bacon. Crosses with the Chinese and